The times they are a-changin’. Companies selling electronics to makers, hobbyists, and professionals will also need to teach and inspire. Selling the bits just isn’t enough. This week’s Soapbox is all about the growing trend of hardware makers becoming online educational destinations in addition to simply supplying product. Good information is a form of advertising, […]
Laen, Open Source Hardware Hero (Photo courtesy of natetherobot) Editor’s note: Joining me interviewing Laen (and in the introduction) is John DeCristofaro, best known as Johngineer in the maker world. Many of you have probably used (or at least know about) the Dorkbot PDX PCB service. Recently, the service changed it’s name to OSH Park […]
Like many of you who were at Maker Faire Bay Area 2012, I’m still recovering. Seeing, meeting, and talking to thousands of makers is overwhelming and it is energizing — there is nothing like it. Today happens to be Father’s Day, so I thought I’d post an observation that I can’t get out of my […]
This week’s Soapbox is a little different. At Maker Faire I got a chance to meet a lot of people that I’ve only known via mailing lists or their work; one of them was Paul Stoffregen from PJRC. He’s the designer and developer behind the Teensy, one of my favorite USB-based microcontroller development systems. While […]
In my previous article Jan Malasek from Pololu had some really interesting statements on intellectual property, so in addition to wanting to know more, I thought I’d see if Jan was up for an interview with MAKE about Pololu. I’ve been covering a lot of open-source hardware companies, almost exclusively, so I wanted to make […]
My article last week about Arduino counterfeits (as in companies actually using the Arduino name, logo, and trademark) and selling them as real Arduinos had some lively debate. Opinion articles are always interesting, because you get a huge spectrum of comments. A variety of opinions were represented for sure: there are folks who think it’s […]
On this week’s Soapbox, Phil Torrone looks into the counterfeit Ardunio products and what you should look for in a knockoff (and why you should care).
